I AM HATHOS!

Several readers have pointed out that the inimitable Alex Heard, a contributor to loads of magazines and writer of several books, coined the term “hathos.” He was kind enough to email me this morning. Here’s his definition: “I first used hathos in The New Republic back in 1985 or so, writing about the Rat Pack inaugural — featuring Frank Sinatra telling the media “You’re all dead.” The never-credited co-coiner of the word is a friend of mine named SCOTT RICHARDSON, who worked as a press aide for Bob Dole at the time. We were sitting around cringing about an entertainment-world travesty, started playing with “pathos” and “hate” … and voila! We argue bloodlessly about who actually thought of the word; given my track record on ideas, it was probably him. The word formally means: “The pleasurable sense of loathing — or, the loathing sense of pleasure — aroused by the ‘work’ of schlock celebrities.” But you’re right to assume that hathos extends beyond entah-tainment to journalism. Oh, yes! Ellen Goodman’s annual meditation-on-time column from Casco Bay, Maine, is a classic example of “print hathos.”” That gives me an idea. Let’s set up a HATHOS WATCH. If you come across an example of print hathos, or indeed anything else clearly hathetic, would you send it to me?